The Granite Industry of Southwestern New Brunswick: A Historical ...

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86 The Granite Industry of Southwestern New Brunswick: A Historical Perspective well. “The sound of the stone hammer,” said the Saint John Globe of November 25, 1887, “is no longer heard ... and Mr. Hogan’s shanty cook has laid away his grid iron.” Several entrepreneurs incorporated the Welsford Red Granite Co. in May 1890, including Saint John businessmen plus a New York banker and mineralogist. Nothing came of their enterprise, and the company disbanded soon afterward. Nerepis North The earliest reference to granite being quarried northeast of the Nerepis River in the Welsford area came in 1880. The Daily Telegraph (September 29, 1880) reported that James McCorkill discovered and owned a ‘mountain’ of red granite on his farm (Map 6, 64) on Nerepis Stream, a mile and a half from Welsford Station. A sample of McCorkill’s granite was polished into a granite pedestal measuring 2 feet high and was entered into the Provincial Exhibition. Possibly as a result of this exhibition piece, the contracting firm of Messrs. H. Surette & Co. of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, showed an interest in black granite from the same area in early 1897. The black stone (Map 6, 64) was situated on land belonging to Malcolm McKenzie, whose farm adjoined that of James McCorkill. The quarry, said the local press, contained ‘an inexhausible supply’ of both red and black granite and featured ‘splendid water power capable of developing a hundred horsepower.’ The noted source of water power may have been McKenzie Brook (Map 6). McKenzie’s black granite quarry was opened in the summer of 1897 under the newly incorporated Dominion Granite Co. This firm also hailed from Bridgewater and had links to Messrs. H. Surette & Co., which owned granite quarries in the Shelburne area of Nova Scotia. In June 1897 Mr. H. Surette, the Dominion company superintendent, petitioned the New Brunswick government to repair access to the Nerepis River bridge so workers could haul stone across to the railroad line at Bayards Crossing (Map 6). The petition apparently succeeded for, later that year, Surette sent 100 tons of red and black granite to Aberdeen. He made other ‘extensive shipments’ of black granite to Britain and even exhibited two polished granite samples in Saint John during September 1897. [One sample was] a huge ball mounted upon a pedestal and base, and the other a slab with the inscription: Welsford Granite. These two pieces are fair samples of the magnificent black granite which can be obtained at Welsford, and which is pronounced by examining experts to be the finest stone they have seen. It is capable of receiving a high lustre, and is particularly suited for monumental purposes. Stanton Bros. of St. John prepared the blocks for exhibition, and the splendid showing which the granite makes reflects a great deal of credit on their workmanship. ~ The St. John Daily Sun, September 23, 1897 Despite the ‘splendid showing,’ the Dominion company proved ephemeral. With the onset of winter in 1897, Surette left New Brunswick, the stonemen disbanded, and work at the McKenzie property stopped. When William Parks wrote his 1914 report on granites of the Maritimes, he gave the idle, overgrown quarry barely a passing mention.
Part Two — The Hampstead District 87 Epilogue Our historical account of the granite quarries in southwestern New Brunswick essentially ends with the Nelson family of the original Nelson Monuments Ltd. After securing the leases to all Spoon Island North and South quarry lots in the 1970s, the Nelsons worked at Hampstead for another three decades (Martin 1990a, p. 146–148). They expanded the quarries and modernized equipment. They installed flame-jet technology to extract the stone and bought new trucks to transport rock to the Sussex processing plant. Monuments in the plant were shaped and engraved using computerized diamond saws, polishing tables and lettering facilities. The company produced monuments, curbing, streetscaping, bridge material, and veneer. Hampstead was the Nelson’s primary but not only source of New Brunswick stone. They removed black granite from the Spinney Quarry (Map 2, 48) from 1962 until 1968, marketing it as Atlantic Black Granite. The material forms veneer in the Centennial Building (Fredericton) and several Moncton store fronts. In the mid-1970s the Nelsons also removed granite from Dawson Mountain (44) to face the Saint John Regional Hospital entrance. As the 1970s merged into the 1980s, Nelsons Monuments Ltd. expanded into Ontario and the United States (Nelson Granite 2013). The Nelsons eventually decided to focus their business in central Canada and in 2001 sold the Hampstead leases, the Sussex plant—and even their corporate name—to a group of New Brunswick entrepreneurs. The new owners of Nelson Monuments Ltd. closed the Hampstead quarries soon afterward. For the first time since 1839, the hills overlooking Spoon Island fell silent as New Brunswick’s longest-running granite operation came to an end. The quarries have since passed to the Saint John firm of Debly Enterprises Ltd. Where New Brunswick granite once competed with building stone from Scotland and Sweden, it now faces more cheaply produced material from farther afield. The ‘new’ Nelson Monuments Ltd. buys stone mainly from China, India and South Africa as well as Quebec. The granite arrives at Sussex in crates as precut tablets ready for engraving. The company still keeps some large blocks of Coral Dawn on hand, material that was quarried at Hampstead before 2001. The stone is used in part for restoration work in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. As well, older customers occasionally request a Coral Dawn monument base to match the one of their deceased spouse, and the company owners make every effort to oblige. The largest active granite quarry in southwestern New Brunswick is owned by JAMER Materials Ltd. It lies near Bayside, just south of the old Mears quarries (Map 2, 53). The granite is crushed into aggregate for road materials, asphalt and concrete and is sold internationally (JAMER Materials Ltd. 2013). During its heyday the Charlotte County granite industry employed upwards of three hundred and fifty quarrymen, stonecutters, stone polishers, monument makers, monument designers, blacksmiths, ferriers and office staff. Today, apart from JAMER Materials, the industry revolves around a handful of people using trucks, crushers and front-end loaders. Some of those people work at the old New Brunswick Red Granite Co. quarries (e.g.,
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Energy and Mines The Granite Indust
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Energy and Mines The Granite Indust
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Part One — The St. George Distric
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Page 103 and 104: Appendices 93 class of stone his cu
Page 105 and 106: Appendices 95 It has long been the
Page 107 and 108: Appendices 97 Quarry 6, Map 3. View
Page 109 and 110: Appendices 99 Above left: Quarry 12
Page 111 and 112: Appendices 101 Above left: Quarry 3
Page 113 and 114: Appendices 103 Left: Quarry 46 (‘
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